Articles about quality, environmental and safety compliance issues.

“Staff who have conducted audits on paper in the past, and then Nimonik, were amazed…” – Barry Johnson

Barry Johnson General Manager of Business Innovations Sapphire Care, AustraliaBarry manages quality assurance across multiple locations in a growing company. He is also responsible for training and awareness-building to protect clients and staff from any safety or quality risk.

The Challenge

Sapphire Care is a growing nursing home operation in Australia. With an annual doubling in size, Barry needed a tool that could scale with their operations. Additionally, he needed a tool that could document the entire compliance process within a highly regulated industry. As Barry explains, the Australian Government’s policy is, “If it is not written down, it did not happen,” which is doubly true when it comes to care of the elderly! Last but not least, Barry needed a tool that his large and growing team could easily adopt. At the time, Sapphire Care was using pen and paper, with no technology in place and no mobile tools to work in the field.

The Search

Barry recalls: “I was looking for something anyone could learn quickly and effortlessly.The other solutions were immature in their set up – they did not have the elements that are required to conduct an audit or they were too complicated.”

Barry found Nimonik and our tools, EHS Audit and EHS Audit Mobile, after an internet search for auditing software and a search in the Apple iTunes App store.

The Solution

“The first time I tried Nimonik, I loved it as I could instantly see the solution. This was on the iPad, which was about a week or two after I found the website and that completely blew me away – brilliant. It closed the loop with the reports, setting facilities, email notification, etc… Staff who have conducted audits on paper in the past and then Nimonik were amazed – such a time saver for them.”

Barry was immediately attracted by Nimonik’s mobility and simplicity. On the iPad, staff could take a photo and annotate it to clearly communicate issues.

Barry also noted the quick turnaround from completion of an audit to generating a report — what used to take two weeks now takes one day max.

The ability to automatically generate a report based on findings also appealed to Barry.

The Implementation

“Nimonik’s team was excellent in assisting me through the process – distance is no barrier – extremely responsive. The team is interested in any issue and is quick to find a solution.”

Barry can now easily train his staff to use Nimonik. Setting up a new user only takes 5 minutes, and company audits are “easy to create and upload.”

The Results

In September 2013, Sapphire Care doubled the size of its operations through the acquisition of another four Aged Care facilities in Australia. Because Barry and his team had put in place a rigorous audit and inspection system, using NimonikApp, they were able to effortlessly scale their team to ensure the new locations were up to requirements.

Nimonik is a huge time saver for Barry’s auditors: “Going from a two-week turnaround under the paper system to a single day, brilliant!”

Nimonik also provides Barry’s department with accountability: corrective actions can be assigned immediately and emailed to the manager.